Category: Personal

Sometimes I’ll share a little about what’s going on with my life here. After all, we’re all human so why deny it? Besides, sometimes the process and underbelly are more interesting. I personally prefer to look at Da Vinci sketches over finished paintings any day.

monastery friends
Talker’s block

Talker’s block

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“No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.”

Seth Godin

Damn, Seth Godin, you know how to get a girl right in the feels.

So I love to talk about travel with people. I ADORE talking about places I’ve been, making recommendations, comparing notes, finding out about places I hadn’t heard of or visited yet. I love comparing cultures and languages, talking about books and movies and music. I talk all the time (just ask my husband.)

So why then, when I started this blog in September, did I put in a few measly posts and walk away after January? What on earth have I been doing?

Honestly, I was overwhelmed. I was intimidated by the endless list of chores to do with a self-hosted blog, the unreachable perfection of posts I will never finish editing, the perfectly processed (and captioned) images which, of course, were taken by yours truly. I hadn’t built a photo gallery yet. I hadn’t fixed my mailing list or found the best spam filter. I hadn’t done laundry, cleaned the fridge, or fed the cats.

It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re procrastinating doing something you want to do even less- I’ve written tons of reviews on Goodreads(and?) drawn-out and thoughtful posts on Facebook (so what?) tiny quips on twitter (#140forever) and won a few photo competitions (okay, that last one is kind of cool. I am proud of my photography.)

And, of course, I’ve done some more adventuring. I volunteered in residence at a Monastery. I was interviewed on a podcast and sent a complimentary pre-release copy of a book I was really excited about. I was in the bridal party of a full Hindu wedding. I worked fashion week (Nicole Kidman and Adrian Brody!) I luxuriated in the silence of a Scandinavian Spa in a small Canadian ski town. I wrote an original score to a puppet show. I did a Southern Fried Road Trip to New Orleans for my birthday and got a little broken doing remote volunteer dispatch and data entry for Harvey in Houston. I went from feeding zero cats to feeding eight of them (explanations forthcoming, I promise.)

Honestly, I can’t wait to tell you all about it. And I see my perfection, my ideal word count, my precisely formatted posts just aren’t getting done.

So like a potter at the wheel, I’m going to throw me some clay and see what sticks. Maybe, like Seth, my posts will be shorter. They may be slightly less on-brand. They may not include eye-catching pictures and SEO-tailored keywords. But they will exist and that’s better than where I’m at now.

Do you know what got me back here? I made a bet with my husband. If I could publish FIVE entries within the next two weeks, he would indulge me with the greatest $10 spicy crunchy thai chili-dipped calamari on the entire planet.

Do you think I can do it?

 

 

 

 

So who are we?

So who are we?

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We are Brian and Mary, two world wanderers and adventure-seekers who are always looking for the way to live a better, more fulfilling life, whether that’s through mindfulness, better efficiency practices, or new technology. Our unusual lifestyle has lead us through twenty years of freelancing and project management, a 9200-mile road trip around the US (with a two-year-old), two and a half months backpacking Europe, and many other wacky adventures. The people we’ve met, places we’ve been, experiences we’ve had, and things we’ve learned have transformed us into who we are today.

We are so excited, so inspired by the things we discover that make our lives richer and more interesting, that we want to share them with others. After fielding hundreds of questions, we’ve  decided to start a blog to share with all of you and to show you how easy it is to completely transform your life.

One Thousand Golden Highways

One Thousand Golden Highways

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It’s not easy being thirty these days.

Late twenties into early midlife is when the people in our lives begin to make deep shifts– some are living with parents and never really left college life, some are heavily focused on career and going out every night, some are overwhelmed by new families, some are starting over, and some have found themselves going to bed early and telling kids to get off their lawns.

It seems like the market is shifting beneath our feet, as though the world we grew up in of bleeping modems and corded telephones, of stable vocations, predictable career paths and pensions, is gone forever. As those older than us start calling it quits and those younger than us get hired as cheaper, faster labor, we have to start asking ourselves:

Are we getting left behind? Can we ever actually catch up? How can we save for retirement, something our parents told us to start doing when we were twenty, when we’re barely getting by now? How can we start a family when we can’t afford to buy a house? How can we make a million dollars when the only way to negotiate a real raise these days is to quit and get a new job?

I am here to tell you there is a better way. After seeing the suffering of those around me and questioning myself and my own struggles, I found the truth:

The world we live in has changed. By putting blinders on and ignoring it, by faithfully using the same tools and following the same paths our parents did, we will never get beyond the treadmill. The game has changed and there are new rules. I am here to find them out, to show you the people who are discovering the new rules and how to use them to your own advantage. The key here is not “keeping up with the Joneses” but to have the Joneses spend all their time speculating on how you can possibly afford to always be in Tahiti anyway. You could tell them, but would they really believe you?

-M & B